THE PRESIDENT: Thank you for that wonderful performance. Laura
and I welcome you all to the White House.

I appreciate the members of my Cabinet who are here, and former
members of the Cabinet who are here. I thank Senator Bill Frist for
joining us, as well as Congressman Mel Watt. Thank you both for
coming. I appreciate Michael Steele, the Lt. Governor of the great
state of Maryland, for joining us.

I want to thank Bruce Cole, the Chairman of the National Endowment
for the Humanities. I appreciate Brian Lamb joining us today, the
President and CEO of C-SPAN. I thank the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial
Commission members and the Advisory Committee for joining us today. I
appreciate all the Lincoln scholars and authors who are here.

I particularly appreciate Sam Waterston and Lynn and Graham for
joining us, as well as Harold Holzer and Edith and Meg. Thank you all
for coming.

Sam and Harold have had a good many reviews since they first took
"Lincoln: Seen and Heard" on the road. Perhaps the most enthusiastic
review I heard came from two unimpeachable sources, Mother and Dad --
(laughter) -- who told how much they enjoyed the performance when they
saw it in Houston. Tonight we've had the special honor of listening to
Lincoln's words being read in the very house where so many of them were
written.

Harold Holzer has written, coauthored, or edited 23 books on
Lincoln and the Civil War. He co-chairs the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial
Commission, and in his spare time, works for one of Laura's favorite
museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He's an avid New
York Yankee fan -- who had a miserable year last year. (Laughter.) He
has won many awards for his work, and his latest book is, "Lincoln At
Cooper Union."

This evening I can let you all in on a secret. Tomorrow it will be
announced that Allen Guelzo, who is with us tonight, and Harold Holzer
are this year's first and second place winners of the prestigious
Lincoln Prize.

Congratulations. (Applause.)

Those of you who know Sam Waterston as Jack McCoy should know that
America's most famous assistant district attorney has portrayed Abraham
Lincoln on stage, on television, and so I'm told, even in ballet.
(Laughter.) He didn't dance. (Laughter.) But he did narrate a
special version of Aron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, while ballet
dancers performed around him. (Laughter.) Sam has said, "If I have to
be typecast, I'd like to be typecast as Abraham Lincoln." I like a guy
who aims high. (Laughter.)

In his readings tonight, Sam noted that it was on this very day
back in 1861 that Abraham Lincoln said good-bye to his home in
Springfield, Illinois, never to return. Over the next four years, from
this house, Lincoln would endure a bitter civil war that included
terrible defeats, as well as ringing victories; he'd sign the
Emancipation Proclamation -- right upstairs -- and he would live to see
his hopes for peace and unity rewarded before his life was taken at
Ford's Theater on Good Friday, 1865.

The Civil War was decided on the battlefield; the larger fight for
America's soul was waged with Lincoln's words. In his own day, Lincoln
set himself squarely against a culture that held that some human beings
were not intended by their Maker for freedom. And as President, he
acted in the conviction that holding the Union together was the only
way to hold America true to the founding promise of freedom and
equality for all. And that is why, in my judgment, he was America's
greatest President.

We're familiar with the words of the Gettysburg Address, and the
Second Inaugural, so eloquently read by Sam. And this performance
reminds us that Lincoln wrote his words to be spoken aloud -- to
persuade, to challenge, and to inspire. Abraham Lincoln was a master
of the English language, but his true mother tongue was liberty.

I hope that every American might have the experience we had here
tonight, to hear Lincoln's words delivered with Lincoln's passion, and
to leave with a greater appreciation for what these words of freedom
mean in our own time.

Thank you all again. Please join us at the reception. And may God
continue to bless our great land. (Applause.)